After the recent Firearms Freedom Act ruling, there will be no firearms freedom in America, at least if the the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has anything to say about it. It agreed with a lower courts decision that if a gun is made in state, sold in state, that the federal power to regulate interstate commerce applies. Sadly, this is consistent with previous court rulings even though its not consistent with the original, legal meaning of interstate commerce under the constitution. A moderate law was passed in Montana that would prevent guns produced in the state from being subject to federal regulations under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. However, these type of common sense measures are not allowed by our federal overlords.

Unfortunately, in this case the 9th Circuit has stare decisis on their side (based on one of the worst decisions the SCOTUS ever handed down — yeah Roe v. Wade and Dred Scott were worse, but Wickard v. Filburn is down there on the role of dishonor .) I don’t think there’s even a 5-4 majority to be had to overturn Wickard, which is what this would take, not just chip away at it, fully overturn it.

4
posted on 09/21/2013 7:17:06 PM PDT
by The_Reader_David
(And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)

These rulings are setting a double-edged precedent. If everything is interstate commerce then every government license, rule and permit affects interstate commerce. An innovative and pro-commerce President could have a field day clipping the wings of the local and state control freaks for harming interstate commerce. This may turn out to be a very good trend for us.

Raich was the insane verdict that makes “interstate commerce” apply everywhere, way beyond what you imagine. It said, in no uncertain terms, the “interstate commerce” clause applied (say, allowing federal DEA “dynamic entry & seizure”) even to totally intra-state products legal within that state (say, a pot plant grown in a “medical pot” state under a doctor’s supervision), even when interstate made interstate commerce of it illegal (say, pot) because - get this - the legal intra-state activity REDUCED demand in illegal inter-state commerce, therefore affecting “interstate commerce”.

12
posted on 09/21/2013 8:23:26 PM PDT
by ctdonath2
(Making good people helpless doesn't make bad people harmless.)

Worked on cases that appeared before it and got some of the worst decisions (good and bad) that I’ve ever seen. For at least one judge, presenting documents of required contract signings for 24 out of 26 companies, and other documents which set the policy that “ALL” those companies had to sign them, was not enought to sanely imply that it ALSO HAD TO APPLY to the remaining two companies whose documents were not found at that time.

Cost the taxpayer $100,000,000 dollars. Hated losing that case because in a sane court, it would have been a slam-dunk win for the govt. But not in the Nutty Ninth.

Lopez was decided 5-4 restricting the commerce power. Raich was decided 6-3 expanding it. Two "switched sides" in Raich, at least to the extent the issue is the same: Scalia and Kennedy.

I can't believe people are still trying the commerce power approach in court. Shortly after the Raich decision, the Supreme Court sent US v Stewart (a case about homemade machine guns for personal use) back to the 9th Circuit with a note pinned to it that said "see Raich." The 9th then dutifully reversed their prior ruling and said federal law applied to Mr. Stewart and his homemade guns.

This issue was decided w/respect to marijuana and guns in 2005. I need one of those funny dead horse images.

Yeah. Scalia, who’s good most of the time, has this disturbing tendency to issue “but what if that inconveniences the cops?” rulings, as if that were more important than whether the rights of private citizens were unnecessarily limited. If the cops wanted to be the top dogs, they should have stayed private citizens. The Constitution had already been in force for centuries when they joined the force. They can’t very well express shock and dismay at its contents now.

19
posted on 09/22/2013 1:49:36 PM PDT
by Still Thinking
(Freedom is NOT a loophole!)

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